Jeffrey Ellis - Page 54

Nashville-area ballet students ages six to 18 are invited to audition Tuesday, October 17, at 5 p.m. for Moscow Ballet soloist and audition director Maria Morari at Dance South Performing Arts in White House. The Moscow Ballet audition is open to students from dance studios across the region with a minimum one year of ballet training.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Rodgers and Hammerstein's iconic 1949 musical about life, romance and hardships during World War II, which broached serious and controversial social issues still being dealt with in the 21st century South Pacific debuts at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson for an October 12-28 run.

Our goal to bring unique, left-of-center plays to the Nashville area that have never been performed here before, said Stephanie Houghton, founder of Gadabout Theater Company. Trevor is a truly unique work with a quirky sensibility that's surprisingly touching in places. We hope Nashville theatergoers will take a chance on experiencing something they're never seen here before.

Springhouse Theatre Company opens its 2017-2018 season with Disney's Beauty and the Beast, directed by Rachael Parker. The show runs September 15,16, 22-23, 29-30, and October 1. All Friday/Saturday shows start at 7:30 p.m. Photographer Kenn Stilger, of Heavenly Perspective Photography, captured much of the excitement of the production with these photos from the final dress rehearsal.

Finally, a musical for everyone who loves musicals! Beginning September 15, Cumberland County Playhouse presents The Drowsy Chaperone, a loving send-up of Jazz age musicals featuring one show-stopping song and dance number after another.

Take, for example, Conner McCabe, a 20-year-old junior at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro: the new academic year has barely been in session for a month and he's already preparing for his role as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet somehow, even with the typical schedule of a harried college student, he managed to find time to answer our queries as the latest actor in the spotlight for this edition of Collegiate Theatrics

If the production of Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men closing tonight after a much too brief two-weekend run at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts proves anything it's just how current and relevant the play remains, almost 30 years after its Broadway premiere. First produced there in 1989, followed up by the wildly successful film version three years later, it's long been a favorite of theater- and film-goers alike, giving them a bird's eye view of the machinations and intrigue that propels the plot of the courtroom drama forward.

Ernie Nolan, Nashville Children's Theatre's new executive artistic director, makes an impressive debut with The Hundred Dresses, the initial show of his first official season as the leader of the country's oldest theater for younger audiences. Nolan's predecessor, the late and great Scot Copeland, led NCT through tremendous growth during his tenure and he is, without question, a hard act to follow.

Who better than Cumberland County Playhouse's artistic director Britt Hancock to take the helm of The Drowsy Chaperone, the latest show slated to open on the mainstage of Crossville's iconic theater? After all, he starred as Broadway producer Feldzieg in the national touring company of the Tony Award-winning show, tap dancing his way across the country and winning hearts and rave reviews all along the way.

Haunted the new collaboration between cutting edge Nashville arts organizations Actors Bridge Ensemble, abrasiveMedia, and FALL: contemporary - aerial dance may heralds fresh way of creating performances in Music City.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

The way Chris Keaton sees it, his decision to take on his first theatrical role as an adult was, essentially, a no-brainer. After all, what proud and devoted father would pass up the opportunity to spend a month or more of evenings with his daughter to join her in the pursuit of a new onstage persona in an original musical?

True, it's only Tuesday, but today's early-in-the-week edition of Friday 5 (+1) is so packed with interesting information and reasons for you to make reservations to see Million Dollar Quartet at Arts Center of Cannon County, we just couldn't control ourselves! And we're guessing you'll need the extra time to secure your tickets to see what director Darryl Deason promises will be one of the best shows of the year. May we suggest, therefore, that you read on in anticipation of Friday's opening night performance

Today, we shine our spotlight on Vanderbilt University junior Michael Maerlender, a native of New London, New Hampshire, who is back in Nashville to pursue his dreams of a life in the theater while working as a production/writing intern with K-Squared Productions and Tennessee Performing Arts Center's world premiere run of Part of the Plan, a new musical that features a score from the catalogue of American singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg, which opened at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre on Sunday night, following two preview performances that started last Friday.

Singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg's music has provided the soundtrack for so many people's lives over the past 40 years that it should come as no surprise that his remarkable catalogue of music now provides the score for a new musical with its sights focused on a Broadway transfer. But does Part of the Plan have the legs for such a momentous leap of faith and a story that will sell tickets?

With Nashville's theater/music/entertainment/arts communities now abuzz about the world premiere of Part of the Plan, a new musical by Kate Atkinson and Karen Harris that is inspired by the music of American troubadour Dan Fogelberg, and which features a score of songs from among the singer/songwriter's catalog of biggest hits.

There is no mistaking the incisive wit of Jane Austen's rather genteel evisceration of the British aristocracy to be found in Sense and Sensibility, the thoroughly delightful and completely engaging adaptation by Kate Hamill that opens Nashville Repertory Theatre's 2017-18 season. In gleeful style, director Rene D. Copeland and her 10-person ensemble bring Hamill's script and Austen's characters to life in a production that might best be described as sparkling and polished.

Memory plays are a challenge for any playwright - ask Tennessee Williams, whose The Glass Menagerie is not only the quintessential memory play, but is also a theatrical masterpiece - and that may, perhaps, explain the shortcomings found in Studio Tenn's The Battle of Franklin: A Tale of a House Divided, by Nashville author A.S. Peterson.

If not for the fact that she is already one on Broadway, it could be said that Rachel Potter's performance in Mamma Mia! - which opened last night at Nashville's historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - was, without doubt or without danger of fulsome exaggeration a "starmaking turn." With a glorious voice and stage presence to spare, Potter's Sophie seized control of the opening night audience from the very first moment she stepped onto the stage, never relinquishing control for one second, even when sharing the stage with the redoubtable Martha Wilkinson, the undisputed queen of musical theatre in Music City.